You have no idea what a problem you have solved here. I have been struggling with a right-to-left language and went through several hoops setting the database table a certain way, calling encode functions in PHP etc. from all kinds of posts I have read, even reversing the order of the words from the received data.

Finally, your post, so simple and brings the data in as it was placed in the database, no need to make any hoops or workarounds (which makes sense in our technological times) I am so happy you came up on the first page in Google.

Great post.